Traditional uses of medicinal animals in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil
The present work presents an inventory of the traditional medicinal uses of animals in the municipality of Bom Sucesso in Paraíba State (PB) in the semiarid northeastern region of Brazil. Information was obtained through the use of semi-structured interviews with 50 people who use zootherapeutic pro...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2012
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3547754/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23050756 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-8-41 |
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author | Alves, Rômulo Romeu Nóbrega Neta, Rita Oliveira de Sousa Trovão, Dilma Maria de Brito Melo Barbosa, Jose Etham de Lucena Barros, Adrianne Teixeira Dias, Thelma Lucia Pereira |
author_facet | Alves, Rômulo Romeu Nóbrega Neta, Rita Oliveira de Sousa Trovão, Dilma Maria de Brito Melo Barbosa, Jose Etham de Lucena Barros, Adrianne Teixeira Dias, Thelma Lucia Pereira |
author_sort | Alves, Rômulo Romeu Nóbrega |
collection | PubMed |
description | The present work presents an inventory of the traditional medicinal uses of animals in the municipality of Bom Sucesso in Paraíba State (PB) in the semiarid northeastern region of Brazil. Information was obtained through the use of semi-structured interviews with 50 people who use zootherapeutic products. A total of 25 animal species used for medicinal purposes were identified (18 vertebrates and seven invertebrates) distributed among five taxonomic categories; the groups with the largest numbers of citations were: mammals (8 citations), insects (7), and reptiles (5). The most cited animal species were: Tubinambis merianae “teju” lizards (44 citations); Apis mellifera Italian honeybees (318 citations); Gallus gallus chickens (31 citations); Ovis aries sheep (31 citations); Crotalus durissus rattlesnakes (14 citations); Boa constrictor (12 citations); and Bos taurus cattle (12 citations). A significant number of illnesses and conditions treated with animal-based medicines were cited, and the category with the greatest number of citations was “problems affecting the respiratory system”. Our results suggest that the use of zootherapeutics in the region is persistent, and that knowledge about these curative practices is an integral part of the regional culture. As such, studies concerning the uses of zootherapeutics are important windows to understanding human/environmental/cultural interactions and a pathway to conciliating regional cultures with efforts to conserve the native fauna. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3547754 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-35477542013-01-23 Traditional uses of medicinal animals in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil Alves, Rômulo Romeu Nóbrega Neta, Rita Oliveira de Sousa Trovão, Dilma Maria de Brito Melo Barbosa, Jose Etham de Lucena Barros, Adrianne Teixeira Dias, Thelma Lucia Pereira J Ethnobiol Ethnomed Research The present work presents an inventory of the traditional medicinal uses of animals in the municipality of Bom Sucesso in Paraíba State (PB) in the semiarid northeastern region of Brazil. Information was obtained through the use of semi-structured interviews with 50 people who use zootherapeutic products. A total of 25 animal species used for medicinal purposes were identified (18 vertebrates and seven invertebrates) distributed among five taxonomic categories; the groups with the largest numbers of citations were: mammals (8 citations), insects (7), and reptiles (5). The most cited animal species were: Tubinambis merianae “teju” lizards (44 citations); Apis mellifera Italian honeybees (318 citations); Gallus gallus chickens (31 citations); Ovis aries sheep (31 citations); Crotalus durissus rattlesnakes (14 citations); Boa constrictor (12 citations); and Bos taurus cattle (12 citations). A significant number of illnesses and conditions treated with animal-based medicines were cited, and the category with the greatest number of citations was “problems affecting the respiratory system”. Our results suggest that the use of zootherapeutics in the region is persistent, and that knowledge about these curative practices is an integral part of the regional culture. As such, studies concerning the uses of zootherapeutics are important windows to understanding human/environmental/cultural interactions and a pathway to conciliating regional cultures with efforts to conserve the native fauna. BioMed Central 2012-10-10 /pmc/articles/PMC3547754/ /pubmed/23050756 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-8-41 Text en Copyright ©2012 Alves et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Alves, Rômulo Romeu Nóbrega Neta, Rita Oliveira de Sousa Trovão, Dilma Maria de Brito Melo Barbosa, Jose Etham de Lucena Barros, Adrianne Teixeira Dias, Thelma Lucia Pereira Traditional uses of medicinal animals in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil |
title | Traditional uses of medicinal animals in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil |
title_full | Traditional uses of medicinal animals in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil |
title_fullStr | Traditional uses of medicinal animals in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil |
title_full_unstemmed | Traditional uses of medicinal animals in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil |
title_short | Traditional uses of medicinal animals in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil |
title_sort | traditional uses of medicinal animals in the semi-arid region of northeastern brazil |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3547754/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23050756 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-8-41 |
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